


Flisky Business

by CaffieneKitty



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (1984 TV), Sherlock Holmes (Rathbone films), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Community: watsons_woes, Deductions, It's For a Case, Original Character Death(s), Poison, Silly, Trains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 15:25:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19815103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaffieneKitty/pseuds/CaffieneKitty
Summary: You meet all sorts of people on trains.





	Flisky Business

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [2019 July Writing Prompt #10 - Word List](https://watsons-woes.dreamwidth.org/1931031.html) (see prompt post for words/phrases) I apologize for the title, it has almost nothing to do with this bit of writing, but once it got in my head I couldn't think of anything else.

Holmes and Watson were on the train to the Scottish parish of Flisk - long before there could even be dreams of a quick flight there - when the pair received an unexpected visitor at their carriage door.

"Oh! Can we help you?" Watson said to the wild-eyed, sweaty man who had burst in and was now leaning on the door-frame.

"Summertime and the living is easy," the man babbled intensely.

Watson chuckled. "For some I suppose."

"For others less at leisure that would be a sophism," Holmes murmured through steepled fingers.

The man's eyes swung toward Holmes. "Red sky at night! A shepherd's delight!"

"Errr..." Watson said. Holmes said nothing.

After an awkward lacuna, the man bent forward in a paroxysm of hacking coughs, toppling face first into their compartment.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Watson, swiftly kneeling next to the man. "Are you all right?"

"Doctor, I am afraid your concern is unfortunately not apposite. This man is dead."

"What?! But he just-" Watson checked the man for pulse and breathing, and found nothing. "Dash it all, Holmes, so he is! But how did-"

Holmes gestured to the corpse with one hand. "If you would, Doctor, please check the man's teeth."

Barely casting a glance at Holmes, Watson rolled the corpse over to do as he asked. Immediately the silver matter oozing from the man's mouth and the smell of bitter almonds became apparent. "Poison!"

"Yes, yes," snapped Holmes, "The teeth, man!"

Watson peered into the dead man's mouth, "His left bicuspid is missing."

"That will be the source of the metallic substance coming from his mouth. It's an amalgamate, an alloy of mercury and cyanide. Used in gold mining."

"That's not possible though, Holmes." Watson's brow wrinkled. "That combination wouldn't be solid at body temperature, would it?"

Holmes hummed grimly. "Correct. It was made to resemble a silver tooth by containing the substance in a clear hardened lacquer coating, intended to degrade over time. A poison-tooth time-bomb. It was likely leaking, causing hallucinations, hence the rambling about summer and shepherds."

Watson looked down at the silver-mouthed corpse. "What a horrible end. To think that we should witness such a strange happenstance."

Holmes chuckled. "Oh this was no happenstance, my good doctor."

"I beg your pardon?"

With a flourish of his coat tails, Holmes leaned closer to the body. "I am afraid who we have here, my dear Watson, is out client's foreman, The contact we were to meet in Flisk."

"Really!" Watson exclaimed.

Holmes hummed in confirmation, flipping the dead man's lapel back with the end of a pencil. "Though why he is on this train from London and now dead will tell us far more about this case than the living man ever could have. And our first stop shall be this man's dentist!"

-.-.-  
(...and then they notify appropriate train personnel about the dead man and get to Flisk and solve the case and all is well. So that's it.)


End file.
